Our first stop on the way to the wedding would be Amarillo Texas. With this leg from our home being a little over seven hours of driving, we knew with the temperatures in Texas that we would need to leave really early in the morning. I believe we rolled out of the house at 5:00 AM.
Our Spot a the Amarillo Texas KOA
The drive went well with no issues towing or finding gas stations. On the flip side, you see some strange things when you drive across the country. Some of the RV’s that are cruising past you on the highway have an amazing amount of junk, and I mean junk, strapped to them. To be quite frank, the highway patrol should be pulling many of these folks over, as their loads, and the way they are fastened down are a hazard to all of us that drive on the highway. I think the Beverly Hillbillys had stuff strapped down more safely than some of these RVs.
We knew as we got closer to Amarillo the temperature would continue to drop by a few degrees making the ride for the girls comfortable. Of course when I say comfortable that was because we were going to check in before the temperatures reached their peak for the day.
Both Tammy and I had fond memories of the Amarillo KOA, but when we pulled in it wasn’t as nice as we remembered. We ended up at site 83, for all practical purposes just a pea gravel site, and I hate that. There’s nothing more frustrating than dragging gravel into the trailer. It always seems to find its way in regardless of putting a mat outside and having carpeted steps. The grass they did have at the site was dormant, not particularly great for my dogs. As you can see from the picture above our site is almost as attractive as a parking lot.
On the bright side no trees at our site meant that the Direct TV Satellite had no issue connecting. The other benefit to this site was that we were directly across from the fenced dog run, or as KOA’s typically refer to them as “Kamp K9”. It’s much easier to get the girls to do their business in these areas.
Tammy thinks when we had come to the Amarillo KOA in 2016 that the campground was quite lush, and that we had a nicer site. Her recollection was that we were almost the only people staying in the campground that trip. That’s probably true because that was a spring trip through New Mexico to Amarillo. Just to be fair this isn’t a bad KOA it’s just not quite as nice as we remembered it.
They have restrooms, laundry, pretty decent cable TV selection (about 48 channels), as well as free wi-fi. Now we have DIRECTV so the cable doesn’t matter that much to us unless we don’t feel like hooking up the satellite for one night; or there are trees that make getting a signal impossible. The reason the Amarillo’s cable selection is worth mentioning is that many KOA’s offer cable but their selection is much more abbreviated. The definition of cable at campgrounds is very loose. Perhaps you will get ten cable channels or a hundred, and this is what drove us to satellite in the travel trailer, consistency. The Amarillo KOA has a decent cable TV channel selection and their wi-fi signal is decent as well.
You will spend about $41.00 per night here for a pull through site WITH your KOA member card. These folks put a lot of money into the campground flyer that they give you at check in. It’s full of things to do in the area, places to eat, and RV repair services.
We used to be a huge KOA fans twenty years ago…but we are not that impressed any more. Now 80% of the time, you just don’t know what to expect. I like predictability, especially at the prices they charge; and you just don’t get that anymore. Of all the KOAs we stayed at on the way to or from Wisconsin during this trip; there are only a handful we would recommend. To be fair, I would have no problem recommending a stay at this KOA. There are nicer KOA’s out there, but this KOA is what you would expect for your money. This KOA gets pretty decent reviews on line, and the staff is quick to respond to any problems that campers mention, and that’s a plus.
This was a hot day, maybe not quite as hot as it was back home, but it was very hot. Late in the afternoon I saw the sky in the east begin to change. Slowly a storm began to build in the far sky and it crept very slowly towards us. I would occasionally look out the door to see if we might get lucky enough for it to go around us, but that was not to be the case. It took a couple of hours before we actually began to hear the rain but then it became very heavy.
The Storm Approaches Amarillo Texas
All this time we had been running both AC units due to the high temperatures. At some point after the rain started Hannah came out of the bedroom and I told Tammy that I thought she felt damp. I walked into the bedroom to find water dripping from the AC unit. We immediately put a pot on the bed to catch the water and I left a message for a representative at our trailer manufacturer. Unfortunately it was late Friday evening and I wouldn’t hear a thing from the manufacturer’s representative until Monday. It was obvious that I would need to try to remedy this issue myself.
In my mind there were only three possibilities:
- The drip pan on the roof could be plugged
- The coils had iced up
- the seal against the AC was not tight allowing rain in.
Now what I found out over the course of the next few days was that the bolts need to be checked yearly. We have never had a trailer where we had to inspect the AC bolts. In addition, figuring out how to get the shroud off inside the bedroom so I could inspect the bolts was difficult; but I finally figured it out. The end result is that I could turn the bolts by hand. I don’t believe that thee factory ever tightened them to begin with..
What started to be a decent day turned bad quickly. Little did we know, there were more troubles just around the corner at our next stop; the Pueblo South KOA.
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